Digital vs Traditional

After 10 years of digital and traditional direct marketing trying to figure out how to co-exist (or eat each other up to survive) in the automotive world, here is what has developed. Digital Marketing has grown tremendously because it’s new and initially had no numbers to speak of so it had nowhere to go but up.

Traditional direct mail marketing has grown a few small points a year, nothing surprising, just a good, solid, and dependable work horse.

Without question, auto dealers that have figured out traditional direct marketing is most effective when integrated with digital marketing and will not just be around tomorrow, but will be (if not already) the dominate alpha in their respected market area.

Dealerships that have dismissed traditional direct mail, will definitely be fighting an uphill battle with the more aggressive dealers in their market that have decided to integrate digital and traditional marketing to enjoy grabbing both the low hanging fruit and “grab the ladder” fruit!

Direct mail marketing drove 445.8 billion dollars (total not just automotive) compared to email driving in 26 billion dollars. So it’s easy to understand why we call direct mail the work horse. For every $1.00 companies invest in direct mail, they enjoy $15.22 in return. That explains why companies invested $45.5 billion bucks into direct mail last year alone.

Bottom-line, if you are an automotive dealership investing only in the internet, you should reconsider that strategy. The internet is great for hand raisers and price shoppers but the internet does little to drive people physically down to the dealership.

If you are a Chevrolet dealership and it’s hard to find pre-owned Chevrolets, what makes more sense than taking your zip code and running a 20 mile radius around it, then inviting everyone that has a 2006-07-08-09 Chevrolet Impala, Camaro, Malibu, and Silverado in to your dealership to buy that vehicle back for top dollar? First, they will usually need to replace that car and second, what auction, who needs to travel across the country to auction after auction? Not you (anymore)…

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